Average monthly wages in April rose 2.77 percent from a year earlier to NT$46,321, while total pay — including overtime compensation, performance-based commissions and bonuses — increased 3.67 percent to NT$53,871, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
Census Department Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) attributed the improvement to an ongoing economic recovery that enables local firms to raise wages and perks for their employees.
Taiwan’s economy in the first quarter expanded 6.56 percent, bouncing back from a 3.49 percent contraction a year earlier, thanks to robust demand from US technology titans for electronics used in artificial intelligence applications.
Photo: Clare Cheng, Taipei Times
However, the recovery is not broad-based, as most sectors remain weighed by tepid end-market demand, government data showed.
Video content creators, financial service providers and telecoms offered relatively high regular monthly wages of NT$67,317 and NT$70,733, while hotels, restaurants and hair salons had relatively low monthly take-home pay of about NT$35,000, Chen said.
The labor accession rate shed 0.2 percentage points to 2.16 percent in April, while the dropout rate decreased 0.31 percentage points to 2.1 percent, meaning more people joined the labor force, the DGBAS said.
In the first four months, average monthly wages were NT$46,105, a 2.39 percent increase from the same period last year, while total monthly wages rose 3.62 percent to NT$67,856, the agency said.
Both figures remained in positive territory, as wages improved rapidly enough to offset the effect of inflation, Chen said.
The consumer price index in April grew a mild 1.95 percent, returning briefly to below the central bank’s 2 percent target.
Chen hesitated to say for certain if regular monthly wage hikes would continue to beat inflation, as firms would adjust compensation terms in line with their business visibility.
Sixty-eight percent of workers in Taiwan did not make monthly take-home pay in excess of NT$50,000, because service providers hire far more workers than advanced technology companies, she said.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading